Software

Question

Virtual Box on Linux....

I need to set up a virtual machine to run Windows XP and Office 07 on my Ubuntu 7.10 box. Box has 1g RAM and AMD 64 2800+ processor.

While running Virtual Box I have no plan to be switching back and forth between Ubuntu on 1 desktop and XP on the other.

I would like to configure Virtual Box to use 768m RAM while running it, but have no clue how much RAM Ubuntu will need in the background. Is this too much RAM to configure Virtual Box to use for this purpose?

Some thoughts and comments

.I run Windows XP in a VMWare guest on a Kubuntu host. While I don't run VirtualBox, the principles are the same. Some thoughts and comments:

** Be careful to not starve either the guest or the host of RAM. If either one starts paging virtual memory to disk, it will affect performance.

** On my own workstation, I run the Windows XP guest in VMware with 512MB. The rest (1.5GB) goes to Kubuntu where I spend most of my time. I get very snappy performance out of both, but I also have a dual-core CPU.

** Your initial idea (768MB for XP in a VM, 256MB for Ubuntu host) might starve the Ubuntu host (running X) even if you don't run any other Linux apps except VirtualBox.

** If you will spend all of your time in XP while the VM is running, you might get away with it. Try it and see. In Kubuntu, I would check memory usage with KSysGuard (similar to Windows Task Manager...if you are not familiar with KDE).

** With "just" 1GB, I would start with 512MB each for host and guest and see how it goes.

** If I were you, I would look to upgrade to 2GB. With 2GB, you would certainly have enough for both host and guest to perform well with running a "normal" set of applications in each. Many types of RAM are cheap these days (but not all). Your AMD 64 2800+ PC probably uses DDR2 RAM. DDR2 is very cheap right now:

Ok, another question...

"** Be careful to not starve either the guest or the host of RAM. If either one starts paging virtual memory to disk, it will affect performance."

While working in guest XP I will be running multiple instances of Access, Excel, or Powerpoint alongside Word. 1 instance of a program will be the answers to either homework or a quiz while the other instance/s of the same program will be corresponding student submissions. The Word doc running alongside is the assignment/quiz which I edit for evaluation purposes to send back to students. (I hope this makes sense?)

On rare occasions, before the crash that replaced XP with Ubuntu this was a problem with the 1g ram 'all to itself'. If I run 768 to Virtual Box and it starves Ubuntu, will things crash go boom or just get slower than snail s**t and/or freeze up?

Answers (I just saw this...sorry)

.I wouldn't expect a crash or a freeze unless you have some kind of hardware problem. I would only expect to see slowdowns caused by lots of virtual memory paging. They might even be "severe". On a system with solid hardware (no problems), virtual memory should work 100%, but could dramatically show everything down if more memory is needed than is backed by real memory.

Running Access, Excel, Powerpoint, and Word will eat up a relative lot of memory. With running all of that, you may need that 768 to work instead of the 512. The disk activity light will be your simplest indicator of page file thrashing.

Try to get by with your current machine (we all do that when necessary). But, I would try to migrate to a 2GB+ system when possible.

Something else...

.The Intel/AMD CPU wars have driven AMD prices into the ground. You might also consider upgrading your AMD 64 2800+ CPU to a dual-core. You probably have the older model AMD 939-pin socket. CPUs for this socket are no longer being made and are in short supply. But, they can still be had and at really great prices:

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